Rework the perk system.

[Technech]

The perk system need a re-work. There are some perks that I would considder skills ie. that need to be learned, and there are some perks that I would consider physical, eg. if you are stronger you can carry more stuf.

My suggestion is to merge the physical perks with their parrent attribute, and move the rest to a "skills" tab and remove or rework the atribute req.

For Perception I think it should include: The infiltrator, Animal tracker and lucky looter, as those skills is all about your ability to notice and spot things, or (drumroll) your Perception. Lock picking and salvage opperations have a skill component, you need to learn those kind of things. The penetrator: I dont know how that works, but I guess you could pretend you learn how to target weak spots.

For strenght: This should be merged with: Sex-T-Rex, Pack mule, miner 69er, and heavy armor from fortitude, as those take brute force and not much more. Motherload reqiers skill, like knowledge of geology.

Fortitude: all the recovery perks plus well insulated and maybe pain tolerance. (frotitude would be a "must have" atribute)

Agility: Run and gun, Flurry off blows, parkour and from the shadows.

Intellect: None of the curent intellect perks, but make intellect give bonus XP% (up to 200%) and Intellect should be the determining factor for ql of crafted items.

 

[Brian9824]

How about no. The entire point of the system is that if you focus on any branch you have options. Your suggestion kills build viability.

Everyone will have to max Intellect to craft so no variability there for instance.

Each tree has a melee and ranged weapon option, as well as supporting skills that rotate around a playstyle.

 

[Khulkhuum]

If 7DTD was a game where you had to buy out all of the skills in order to be successful sure...

But considering you can choose different skill trees at consecutive playthroughs and still survive quite well says a lot.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

If 7DTD was a game where you had to buy out all of the skills in order to be successful sure...

Even if you can buy all skills out, most people won't play long enough to get so high level that they could afford buying all skills. And if they do it takes a looooooooooooooong time until you got all skills.

But considering you can choose different skill trees at consecutive playthroughs and still survive quite well says a lot.

Nobody said it's impossible to survive with this perk system. But it almost forces you into a playstile given by the perks per skill or you have to waste points across skills just to get some single perks you WANT to have.

At least the skills should not give weapon specific advantages like they do now, but maybe generic skills faster reload for every ranged weapon, faster attack rate for all melee weapons, more damage for alle weapons, run faster, use less stamina and only perks specialise on a specific weapon type.

Maybe strength increases melee damage and perception increases ranged damage weapons. But not strength increase shotgun and club damage and perception sniper rifles and spears.

You want to sniper and avoid melee, you have to skill perception. You also want to mine you have to skill strength to get motherlode and miner 69er. But the points you have to put in strength directly are completely useless for your playstile, because you don't use clubs and shotguns and strength itself doesn't even make mining better. That's why the 5 base attributes should give generic bonuses in my opinion.

It's ok that the shotgun perks require strength, but the attribute strength itself should NOT already prefer shotguns but only generic strength related issues (e.g. more melee damage, more block damage but for ALL tools)

Edit: From what the online skill calculator says: Like Fortitude and Agility are already. They push your health and stamina. So they give generic bonuses everybody takes advantage of. There is no way of not using them.

Perception, Strength and Inelligence are the opposite, they don't give any generic advantages, but only specific. But you need the attributes for some of the perks.

 

[Khulkhuum]

This is why you choose what is best for your character in the playthrough you currently have. The beauty of it all is that you don't have to invest into everything.

Sure you could invest into health, but i manage quite well with Fortitude on 1 and what i need with 1 point in from that tree.

Sure you could invest into crafting, but i found most of the most important recipe books and i don't need Intelligence.

Sure you could invest into stealth, but on the other hand most people can handle fighting without it, especially exploring POIs.

Sure you could invest into strength, but some of the resources you want can be easily obtained from other sources (not necessarily mining).

The only required investment in my opinion is for the weapon of your choice. Higher attribute points gives bigger dismemberment chance, as well as other bonuses from the weapon perk. This gives incentive for crafting, exploring, trading and doing quests. I personally wish for more activities to progress and change the world, but oh well...

 

[Liesel Weppen]

That may be YOUR choice why you don't need to invest points into some skills.

But the question is not what YOU want, but what different players LIKE to do!

You can fight trough pois without stealth... nice. But maybe i like to do pois with stealth, even if i could do it in other ways?

You found most books? Nice... I'm on day 40 and still haven't found the books needed to complete a Minibike.

You loot your ressources elsewhere? Nice... but i want to mine.

That's exactly what i critisized about: The current perk system forces you into some kindes of playstyles. Not into only one, but it gives you only a limited choice. You CAN do it in those ways, sure, but that is not necessilary the way i WANT to do it.

 

[Khulkhuum]

Putting 1 or 2 points into Hidden Strike increases stealth damage into high enough levels to sometimes oneshot sleepers. This is NOT a specialization for Agility.

Putting 1 or 2 points into Miner 69'er and Mother Load allows gathering A LOT of resources from veins somewhat faster. Sure you would yield more if you had it on 5th level, but it doesn't make it give you barely nothing. This is also NOT a specialization for Strength.

Putting 1 or 2 points into any Fortitude skill gives a substantial bonus to everything health related. The 1st level of Healing Factor gives you basic healing, 1st level of Living off the Land gives you double harvest from wild or planted crops, 1st level of Pain Tolerance gives 20% stun resist and 5% less HP loss, 1st level of Huntsman gives 20% more resources from animal butchering, etc. This is NOT a specialization, but gives quite a lot.

Perception is similar to Fortitude. Salvage Operations on 1st gives 20% more resources, 20% faster and with 10% more damage. The 1st level of Penetrator gives 10% armor piercing. Animal Tracer on 1st shows you small animals when stealthed. Lucky Looter on 1st gives 10 loot bonus and 10% faster looting. This is NOT a specialization.

Investing into Intelligence is difficult, because it requires quite a few points into the base attribute to obtain higher levels of perks, but Forge is available at Int 1, just like the Bicycle. Daring Adventurer on 1st gives you additional quest reward choice and Better Barter gives 5% better prices at traders. Other options include finding recipies, so it means exploring POIs.

Everything mentioned above is perhaps meaningless, because the bonuses are too low and investment is too high. Well if you want 50% to everything then scrounge up those levels fast and invest into everything. Still, it's like the old saying "If you're good at everything, you're not great at anything" or something like that.

As for the recipes, i am on day 38 and have not found the Minibike books. Also, i'm still missing a couple seed books and MANY weapon books. The bicycles i have bought in the past turned into parts after two of the updates, but i'm not moaning about it. I've got 4 forges up and running (built), workbench (built), chem station (built) and a steady amount of pistol ammo (Agility Spec). Considering skills, i've put single points into many of the above perks and they serve me well.

Just keep swimming.